Fame, Money, Power, and Bad Game

Hate to be all ripped from the headlines, but

Lucia Stoller, now Lucia Evans, was approached by Weinstein at Cipriani Upstairs, a club in New York, in 2004, the summer before her senior year at Middlebury College. Evans wanted to be an actress, and although she had heard rumors about Weinstein she let him have her number. Weinstein began calling her late at night, or having an assistant call her, asking to meet. She declined, but said that she would do readings during the day for a casting executive. Before long, an assistant called to set up a daytime meeting at the Miramax office, in Tribeca, first with Weinstein and then with a casting executive, who was a woman. “I was, like, ‘Oh, a woman, great, I feel safe,’ ” Evans said.

Now I know some of you mouth breathers are gonna be like, “She tried to play the game, but she got played” – but that misses the point.

Weinstein was a starmaker. But rather than dangle the carrot – he decided to use the stick.   Incessant calling of some college co-ed.  He’d rather coerce than entice.

When Evans arrived for the meeting, the building was full of people. She was led to an office with exercise equipment and takeout boxes on the floor, where she met with Weinstein alone. Evans said that she found him frightening. “The type of control he exerted, it was very real,” she told me. “Even just his presence was intimidating.”

Her subjective feelings are her own, I won’t speak for her – but the entire set up is akin to putting some teenager in a room with a grizzled homicide detective.  Force of will + environment = bad result

In the meeting, Evans recalled, “he immediately was simultaneously flattering me and demeaning me and making me feel bad about myself.” Weinstein told her that she’d “be great in ‘Project Runway’ ”—the show, which Weinstein helped produce, premièred later that year—but only if she lost weight

So on top of the coercive environment, his power over her career, he still makes it worse.

I’ll let you read the rest – but this is a perfect example of what not to do if you’re a rich and powerful celebrity.

Remember Billy C?

Here’s how him and Lewinsky got down, per CNN

November 1995: Lewinsky and President Bill Clinton begin a sexual relationship, according to audiotapes secretly recorded later by Linda Tripp.

December 1995: Lewinsky moves into a paid position in the Office of Legislative Affairs, handling letters from members of Congress. She frequently ferries mail to the Oval Office.

April 1996: Then-Deputy White House Chief of Staff Evelyn Lieberman transfers Lewinsky to a job as an assistant to Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon. Lieberman told The New York Times the move was due to “inappropriate and immature behavior” and inattention to work. At the Pentagon, Lewinsky meets Tripp, a career government worker.

Summer 1996: Lewinsky begins to tell fellow Pentagon employee Linda Tripp of her alleged relationship with Clinton.

There are more details just on the CNN site – but this is a family blog!

My man Kevin Hart.  Some random chick gets involved with him and gets extorted because he has something to lose.

These guys are using the fame, power, wealth (more so the fame and power) to either coerce their way into something, take advantage of a situation, or get involved with people not understanding the blowback.

Now let’s look at another highly desirable public figure.  My man Derek Jeter. (he’s a badminton player right?)

“Derek has girls stay with him at his apartment in New York, and then he gets them a car to take them home the next day. Waiting in his car is a gift basket containing signed Jeter memorabilia, usually a signed baseball,” the friend dished.

“This summer, he ended up hooking up with a girl who he had hooked up with once before, but Jeter seemed to have forgotten about the first time and gave her the same identical parting gift, a gift basket with a signed Derek Jeter baseball,” the pal said.

“He basically gave her the same gift twice because he’d forgotten hooking up with her the first time!”

Derek is now married, but when he was single – HE WAS READY TO MINGLE.  He ain’t promising these chicks a spot on the team.  He didn’t have any “leverage” over them other than what he had to offer. They wanted to holla at the boy – he took care of them.

And that’s how you do it.

-Archie